It’s another beautiful morning in the Everglades. The sun’s shining, birds abound and the insects have abated with the sunrise.

We have our usual early morning coffee and catch up on some ‘housekeeping’ for work and projects. Jana and I take the dogs for a leisurely stroll and meet some young guys, Jake and James, who are traveling in a Prius and camping in tents. We chat a bit about their trip and ours. Us on a 40’ RV with four humans and three dogs. Them in a Prius with two pup tents, their fishing rods and bikes.

We also bumped into Chris and Debra, the campground hosts, and had a couple of chats as they did their ritual circuits around the campground. They try to get in six laps of the campground across the AM and the PM, for a total of 3 miles. They’re lovely people and love this spot. It is a great, quiet, and picturesque campground and we have really enjoyed it (sans the biting insects). 

The next leg of our trip is only a short one so we take our time getting mobile. Usually we try to travel 4-5 hours on each travel day, but we want to visit Naples and Sanibel Island so we’re heading up to Bonita Springs which is a short hop from the Big Cypress Preserve.

Jack cracked out the drone to get some footage of “Thelma and Louise” in motion as we headed out onto 41 West. We then turn onto 29 North (not to be confused with Charlottesville’s 29 North) and across to Bonita Springs and the Sanctuary RV Resort.

Bonita Springs is north of Naples and south of Fort Myers. Sanibel Island is WNW of Bonita Springs. So we’re essentially smack dab in the middle of all the places we’d like to see, but maybe not in the optimal spot persey.

We get set up and head over to Bonita Beach. On the way there, we stop for some takeout sushi at Tako in Bonita Springs. This is in a little strip mall, but they did a great job with fresh, beautifully presented sushi, poke bowls, Boba Teas and more. 

When we get to the beach, there is a strong scent in the air. Turns out there’s a red tide and a lot of small fish dead on the beachfront adding to the pungent odor. We’ve heard about these algal blooms, but to experience the acrid odor and the fish kill resulting from this byproduct of global warming is compelling.